Alfredo Del Monte

The Analysis of Network Additionality in the Context of Territorial Innovation Policy: The Case of Italian Technological Districts

Evidence from economic literature suggests that innovative activities based on extensive interactions between industry, universities and local government can yield high levels of economic performance. In many countries, therefore, steps have been taken at an institutional level to set up innovation networks and, in particular, regional technological districts. Our paper deals with Italian Technological Districts: we aim to analyse the network additionality for territorial innovation determined by district policy. The analysis is based on a priori structural regional characteristics and on Social Network Analysis techniques.

Corruption and public debt: a cross-country analysis

ABSTRACT Using data from a large panel of countries over the period 1995–2015, this article empirically investigates the effect of corruption on public debt. Overall, the estimates reveal that corruption increases public debt. The effect, however, appears to be heterogeneous across income-related sample splits: it is stronger for advanced economies, but weaker and less statistically robust for less-developed countries, where external factors such as foreign aid may also affect public debt. The analysis suggests the inadequacy of conventional wisdom assuming that more detrimental fiscal effects of corruption arise in low-income countries.

Analysis of Collaborative Patterns in Innovative Networks

This paper focuses on territorial innovative networks, where a variety of actors (firms, institutions and research centers) are involved in research activities, and aims to set up a strategy for the analysis of such networks. The strategy is twofold and relies, on the one hand, on the secondary data available from administrative databases and, on the other, on survey data related to the organizations involved in innovative networks. In order to describe the peculiar structures of innovative networks, the proposed strategy adopts the techniques suggested in the framework of Social Network Analysis. In particular, the main goal of the analysis is to highlight the network characteristics (interactions between industry, university and local government) that can influence network efficiency in terms of knowledge exchange and diffusion of innovation. Our strategy will be discussed in the framework of an Italian technological district, i.e., a type of innovative network.

Agricultural Productivity, Banditry and Criminal Organisations in Post-Unification Italy

The purpose of this paper is to show that in the period after Italian unification in 1861 twovery important criminal phenomena in Southern Italy, banditry and organised crime, became rooted in the structure of rural and land organisation. We develop a simple model to show that organised crime has a greater incentive to offer protection when economic development and land productivity are relatively high and the state is unable to provide adequate protection for property rights. The model is tested on the provinces in Southern Italy in the late nineteenth century and then on Sicilian towns in the early 1900s. Otherfindings suggest that banditry spread in the poorest areas of the South where land ownership was highly concentrated and productivity was low. On the other hand, organised crime developed only in the wealthiest areas. Finally, there was an inverse relation between the intensity of banditry and that of organised crime.

La collaborazione nel settore dell’artigianato artistico in Campania: il caso dell’oreficeria

This paper analyzes the main trends of cooperation among firms operating in the jewelry industry of the Campania region of Italy. The two main regional consortia are analyzed: Tari and Antico Borgo Orefici, Interviews with the primary players have investigated the reasons for companies to join the two consortia. Firms join Tari for security purposes and cost savings, while firms in the Antico Borgo Orefici judge the cost to join Tari too high. Using data from a survey conducted on firms participating in an annual fair organized by Tari in 2015, we have performed an econometric analysis. The results indicate a low propensity towards cooperation, mostly limited to vertical collaborations with suppliers and customers. Other types of cooperation, such as horizontal or institutional, are rarely used. However, firms that cooperate show better economic performance. The major advantage associated to partnerships is the exploitation of new production processes and new machinery.

Divario digitale e trappola della povertà: evidenza dalle province italiane

The paper uses an original dataset to analyse the distribution of broadband take-up in the Italian provinces. Although the results should be approached with caution, from the perspective of cause-and-effect interpretation, we point out the interesting fact that broadband technology take-up is highly correlated to factors of wealth, level of education and degree of concentration of the offering, even after checking the demographic and typical morphology of the provinces. The first two factors would justify the alarm voiced by those commentators who fear the emergence of a new form of social inequality, driven by easy access to the new-generation of services available through the Internet.